A Sunday in Córdoba

Hello friends. Our last day in Córdoba happened to fall on a Sunday. We started the day at a slow pace. Our first goal was simple: we wanted to see what was open on a Sunday in this city and where you could go. Within the first few minutes, we came across a small surprise. The garden of the church right next to our place was open. Just the day before, it had been closed all day. We had passed by and looked at it on our first day, but that morning it had a completely different atmosphere.

We started walking in the opposite direction of the city center. There was a gate we had noticed earlier but hadn’t entered, thinking it was probably a private courtyard. A little further on, we once again came face to face with a classic Córdoba reality: wherever you turn, something from Roman times or the Middle Ages appears before you. The view was beautiful, the pace was slow and the feeling of discovery came naturally. We encountered gardens hidden inside courtyards. From the outside they go unnoticed, but once inside they turn into small, self-contained worlds. Old buildings, churches with rounded details, decorated walls… It was clear that locals knew these places well. People were filling bottles at fountains, even large eight-liter containers. Clearly, this was a city where people trusted the water. Fountains are still part of everyday life here.

Despite it being Sunday, the city was much more crowded than we had expected. I had thought everyone would be at home, but I was wrong. We started wandering around the San Andrés area. I was genuinely surprised at how geraniums and other flowers managed to survive in this heat. At one point, we saw a large group of people passing under a building. Maybe a funeral, maybe another kind of ceremony. We couldn’t quite tell, but Córdoba is full of such moments. A park that had been completely empty the day before was now full. People were out and about. Some supermarkets were open, like Carrefour Express, though I found them expensive. I paid two euros for five liters of water, whereas at Aldi I had bought eight liters for almost half the price. Still, it was good to have an option in case of emergencies on a Sunday. That day I was also feeling a bit allergic and kept sneezing. I didn’t know why, but Córdoba didn’t seem to care much about it.

As we kept walking, I started mixing up the churches. All of them were old, all different, each with its own character. We moved more by intuition than by signs. Spanish and Roman heritage overlapped everywhere here. That density was truly impressive. We walked almost in a circle around the city. At one point, I realized we had stepped outside the old city boundaries. Roman walls stretched out to our left. It’s not surprising at all that the city has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1984. What was interesting was that even though we were about three kilometers away as the crow flies from where we had been the day before, another section of the same wall appeared right in front of us.

My phone showed 42 degrees. Since people had been talking about 44 or 45 degrees, I found myself thinking: This counts as cool today. Walking in the sun was dizzying. The center, crowded in the morning, had quieted down by the afternoon. The urge to go back home and lie down became stronger. The body was taking the heat seriously. We had a flamenco plan for the evening. During the day, we had walked almost everywhere in the center, but even so, saying "I’ve seen all of Córdoba" didn’t feel possible to me. The streets were still beautiful, the details still surprising. Fans were expensive in tourist areas. The same item dropped to half the price just a few streets away. Moving a bit farther always helps.

Humidity was very low. Because of that, mist-cooling systems were incredibly effective. The day before, I had felt my eyes drying out in the wind, then I got used to it. Bars were open, there was music, life was flowing. The sun burned here, but it didn’t make you sweat. It was strange, but to me it felt bearable. In narrow streets, the sound of motorcycles was sometimes annoying. Interestingly, the city, which was very noisy on Friday night, was quiet on Saturday. On Sunday, it came back to life. We entered new streets. Medieval gates, old stones, walls… It was easy to get lost.

By late afternoon, clouds appeared and the air became a bit stifling. We closed the day with the sunset.

It was very clear that this city couldn’t be finished in three days. Even though it was Monday, the crowds were still large, most of the tourists were locals. We tried two traditional desserts: grandmother’s cake and a burnt-top cheesecake. They were good, but not miraculous. Lemon and orange trees were everywhere, but they had no scent. Maybe it’s different during flowering season.

Every corner of Córdoba hid a different kind of beauty. The next day we moved on to Seville, but Córdoba’s courtyards, shade and stone streets stayed with us.